d7.1 communcation plan - yourdatastories.eu · based on the changes to eu research projects through...

YDS-645886 Public 0445F01 Communication Plan

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H2020-INSO-2014

INSO-1-2014 ICT-Enabled open government

YDS [645886] “Your Data Stories”

Project Reference No 645886 — YDS — H2020-INSO-2014-2015/H2020-INSO-2014

Deliverable D7.1 Communication Plan

Workpackage WP7: Communication and Dissemination

Nature R = Document, report

Dissemination Level Public

Date 31/05/2015

Status Final v1.0

Editor(s) Mirko Lorenz, Tilman Wagner (DW)

Contributor(s) Anna Triantafillou (ATC), Despoina Mitropoulou (GFOSS),

Reviewer(s) Despoina Mitropoulou (GFOSS)

Document description The communication strategy for YDS.

D7.1 Communcation Plan


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Document Revision History

Version Date Modifications Introduced

Modification Reason Modified by

0.1 12/05/2015 Document set-up DW

0.2 14/05/2015 TOC DW

0.3 18/05/2015

Transfer from Google

Doc, initial feedback

integrated

DW, ATC

0.4 22/05/2015 Adding to chapters 1-3 DW



0.7 28/05/15 Integrating internal

feedback DW

0.8 30/05/2015 Reviewing the

document GFOSS, ATC

1.0 31/05/2015 Finalising the

document DW


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Executive Summary

This deliverable, “D7.1 Communication Plan”, presents the strategy on how this particular project,

“YourDataStories”, aims to create an impact among its research and interest community, as well as

beyond, through the dissemination work and activities about the research progress during the projects

duration.

Based on the changes to EU research projects through Horizon2020, communication has received a

bigger and more important role than in the previous FP7-funded projects. While the former were more

strongly geared towards working with scientific methods and communication in the scientific

community, “innovation actions” in H2020 are expected to have a certain impact throughout and after

the project lifetimes.

This document is the first iteration on how YourDataStories (YDS) aims to achieve these goals. Thus, the

purpose of this document is to provide an initial project dissemination strategy by highlighting targeted

groups and communities, defining internal dissemination guidelines and procedures.

In addition this deliverable identifies the tools, events and actions that will be used to reach the

aforementioned goals.

It also includes a list of prominent journals, press and mass media (both ICT and business oriented)

which reach a broader audience on both national and international levels. Further details are provided

with regard to project dissemination materials, including actual dissemination results to date, which

will be elaborated over time.

Whilst formally this document is delivered at the start phase of the project, it is not intended to be a

one-off static plan but to be dynamically developed both in terms of the planning actions and to show

the results achieved.


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Table of Contents

1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................................ 7

1.1 PURPOSE AND SCOPE ........................................................................................................................................................ 7

1.2 METHODOLOGY AND STRUCTURE OF THE DELIVERABLE ............................................................................................................ 7

2 COMMUNICATION STRATEGY................................................................................................................................... 9

2.1 OBJECTIVES ..................................................................................................................................................................... 9

2.2 GOALS OF THE COMMUNICATION PLAN ................................................................................................................................ 9

2.3 TARGET OUTCOMES ........................................................................................................................................................ 10

2.4 IMPACT MEASUREMENT MATRIX....................................................................................................................................... 11

3 COMMUNICATING YDS: SPECIFIC GOALS AND OBJECTIVES .................................................................................... 13

3.1 OVERVIEW .................................................................................................................................................................... 13

3.1.1 Key Challenges ................................................................................................................................................. 13

3.1.2 Goals for YDS .................................................................................................................................................... 13

3.2 COMMUNICATION PHASES FOR THE PROJECT ....................................................................................................................... 13

3.2.1.1 Phase I: Inform and Connect ................................................................................................................................... 15

3.2.1.2 Phase II: Demonstrate and Contribute .................................................................................................................... 15

3.2.1.3 Phase III: Share and Convince .................................................................................................................................. 16

3.2.1.4 Final integration towards end of project and beyond ............................................................................................. 16

4 AUDIENCE ............................................................................................................................................................... 17

4.1 DEFINING THE AUDIENCE FOR YDS ..................................................................................................................................... 17

4.2 MAIN TYPES OF AUDIENCE ................................................................................................................................................ 17

4.2.1 Public and Private Companies .......................................................................................................................... 17

4.2.2 Media, Journalists and Data-Experts ............................................................................................................... 18

4.2.3 Scientific Community ........................................................................................................................................ 18

4.2.4 General Public .................................................................................................................................................. 19

4.2.5 Key messages for audiences (table) ................................................................................................................. 19

5 CLAIMS, MESSAGES AND FACTS ............................................................................................................................. 20

5.1 CLAIMS AND MESSAGES OVERVIEW ................................................................................................................................... 20

5.2 COMMUNICATION CHANNELS............................................................................................................................................ 22

5.3 COMMUNICATION FREQUENCY AND FEEDBACK LOOPS ............................................................................................................ 23

5.3.1 Communication frequency and contact funnel ................................................................................................ 23

5.3.2 Feedback loops ................................................................................................................................................. 23

6 COMMUNICATION RESOURCES AND COLLATERAL ................................................................................................. 25


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6.1 PROJECT IDENTITY .......................................................................................................................................................... 25

6.1.1 Logo ................................................................................................................................................................. 25

6.1.2 Colours ............................................................................................................................................................. 26

6.1.3 Fonts ................................................................................................................................................................ 27

6.1.4 Language ......................................................................................................................................................... 27

6.1.5 Compulsory Elements and Imprint ................................................................................................................... 27

6.1.6 Contact ............................................................................................................................................................. 28

6.2 TEMPLATES ................................................................................................................................................................... 28

6.3 WEBSITE ....................................................................................................................................................................... 29

6.4 SOCIAL NETWORKS ......................................................................................................................................................... 32

6.4.1 Twitter .............................................................................................................................................................. 32

6.4.2 LinkedIn ............................................................................................................................................................ 33

6.4.3 YouTube ........................................................................................................................................................... 34

6.4.4 Google+ ............................................................................................................................................................ 34

6.4.5 Other Social Networks...................................................................................................................................... 34

6.5 PRINTED MEDIA ............................................................................................................................................................. 35

6.5.1 Flyer ................................................................................................................................................................. 35

6.5.2 Brochure ........................................................................................................................................................... 35

6.5.3 Banner .............................................................................................................................................................. 35

6.5.4 Newsletter ........................................................................................................................................................ 36

6.6 DISSEMINATION EVENTS AND COLLABORATION .................................................................................................................... 36

6.7 PAPERS, PUBLICATIONS AND PRESS RELEASES ...................................................................................................................... 36

6.8 SUSTAINABILITY .............................................................................................................................................................. 37

7 EVALUATION AND REPORTING ............................................................................................................................... 38

8 COMMUNICATION AND DISSEMINATION TIMEPLAN ............................................................................................. 40

9 ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES ................................................................................................................................ 41

10 CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................................................................................ 42

11 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................................................... 43


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List of Figures

Figure 1: Dissemination Phases .............................................................................................................. 14

Figure 2: Approaching Target Groups ..................................................................................................... 19

Figure 3: YourDataStories Logo in Color ................................................................................................. 25

Figure 4: YourDataStories Logo in Black and White ............................................................................... 26

Figure 5: Social Media Avatar ................................................................................................................. 26

Figure 6: Colours and RGB Numbers ....................................................................................................... 26

Figure 7: Examples of Calibri Font Use for Documents .......................................................................... 27

Figure 8: PowerPoint Template .............................................................................................................. 29

Figure 9: Homepage of the YDS Website, displaying a few first profiles ............................................... 30

Figure 10: Exemplary Website Content Plan .......................................................................................... 32

Figure 11: YDS Twitter Channel .............................................................................................................. 33

Figure 12: YDS-Profile on LinkedIn .......................................................................................................... 34

Figure 13: Communication and Dissemination Timeplan ....................................................................... 40

List of Tables

Table 1: Impact Measurement Matrix .................................................................................................... 12

Table 2: Communication Strategy documented in the DoA ................................................................... 14

List of Terms and Abbreviations

Abbreviation Definition

YDS YourDataStories

DoA Description of Action

OGD Open Government Data

H2020 Horizon2020


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1 Introduction

There is a growing, global commitment among public bodies to open up data and make it available for

public use. YourDataStories (YDS) opens up new ways to use open data. This project aims to play a role

as an accelerator and enabler in this space. The idea of the communication plan is to ensure that this

opportunity is noticed and understood by key user groups, the media and the general public by defining

appropriate dissemination activities.

1.1 Purpose and Scope

Communication and dissemination in H2020 projects are structured to ensure that innovation actions

have an impact beyond the mere research outcome. Innovation actions are supposed to create an

interest for the project beyond their research group and special interest groups. This is partially a

departure from previous communication activities, e.g. the more scientific orientation of FP7 projects.

Accordingly communication for H2020 must focus on more general principles of market communication

and market adoption of projects and tools. The task is to present the projects core work, generate

awareness, and deepen the awareness into exchange about how to utilize the resources and finally

integration in user organizations. Therefore general guidelines for professional communication in

terms of chosen channels, messages, frequency of messages, reach of target groups are key.

The general principle is to firstly identify user groups with needs that can be solved via the projects

work. Furthermore there must be a structured process to inform the general public and specific user

groups, and then demonstrate how the solutions from the project can enhance the work of the users

organization.

Given that there are many competing solutions the communication plan must achieve the awareness

and adoption process in a relatively short timeframe during the projects run. Given that the first year

is primarily used for gearing up, the communication must focus on the final two years of the project to

achieve this.

1.2 Methodology and Structure of the Deliverable

This document defines the strategy and means of the communication for YDS throughout the project

and even beyond in terms of impact.

The strategy is structure into three main steps. First, we start with a definition of the key objectives,

and then we move on to a structured time plan and the different phases of communication:

What is it that we want to communicate?

Where is the pain point for our potential user groups?

Where could YDS contribute with its innovations and offerings?


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Based on an extensive definition of our envisioned potential users and communication groups, we move

on to describe the phases of the YDS communication strategy. Here it is crucial to understand that

awareness, engagement and buy-in should only be build up over time for any research and

development project. From a successful marketing point of view, it makes no sense to just claim great

outcomes when it is actually too early to let users check out solutions and test them based on code,

not just paper.

This is why we have defined three distinct communication phases for YDS in chapter 3.2


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2 Communication Strategy

2.1 Objectives

What this project aims for has been laid out in detail in the description of action (DoA): There is a

growing understanding among public bodies and companies that opening up data sets can in theory

contribute to better communication about issues and development. It can thus enable more

opportunities for creating better, more innovative solutions to tackle obstacles, barriers. It can hence

help make better decisions.

But there are still a number of inefficiencies, which are to be tackled by YDS:

Data is available, open and public, but at the same time diverse and often incompatible.

There is a lack of standardization, both for vocabularies in use as well as data formats.

The visibility of existing data is limited. Outside of expert circles many people who could be using

the data are not aware of this development.

User, e.g. citizens or journalists, do not seem to be attracted by the existing solutions and tools

as too much time is needed in order to use them, and no answers arise from them in simple

ways.

Governments (in Europe and elsewhere) spent significant amounts of money on open data, but

the introspective mode of production hinders their exploitation. Often portals that have been

made possible with considerable effort are only used by a low number of experts and developers

with highly specialized levels of know-how.

Journalists and media organizations, who are increasingly interested in reporting based on data

have to spent too much time just finding data, re-formatting and cleaning it for reporting

purposes, again resulting in less lower levels of exchange than anticipated.

This is where YDS aims to contribute. The key offering, as written in the project’s Description of Action

(DoA) describes the main aspects of YDS, that are the basis for this communication plan:

2.2 Goals of the Communication Plan

In order to properly and correctly define the goals for the communication plan we use parts of the DoA

below. This is to ensure that there is a refined view on how to communicate what message to whom

specifically.


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As stated in the vision & objectives section of the DoA there are several refined views on who we are

talking to:

(1) “YourDataStories” (YDS) seeks to pave a new road regarding applications and public services based

on OGD. The distinction between the “supply side” and the “demand side” of OGD may become more

“fuzzy”, if we take into account the “grey” area in between, actors that cannot be clearly

distinguished as suppliers or as consumers of data.

(2) YourDataStories envisions to combine and fuse these two “suppliers” of open data (traditional

producers and user- generated content) and to exploit the added value from this amalgamation in

order to better satisfy the needs of the “demand side”.

(3) Adding a bidirectional link between the already existing semantic interpretations of data and

linked data, and the social Web will spur a plethora of new opportunities along with enlarged

potential for innovation: Innovative applications that move towards the Web 3.0 era, massive visibility

and participation once OGD acquire a social dimension, opportunities to validate, correct, and

augment OGD with user-generated content.

To conclude, YourDataStories (quote) „wants to develop the required software stack that will enable

the OGD to reach citizens in their everyday online life, inside the digital social interaction they are

already familiar with, acquiring a significant role in citizen’s social activity. However, the addition of

this third “social” dimension to OGD should not be done at the expense of the two existing

dimensions.“

2.3 Target Outcomes

The goals described so far can be translated into early and basic requirements for a successful project

and are of course connected to the communication plan. They define what the communication will have

to focus on in terms of making the goals understandable, demonstrable and, finally, usable for the

intended users.

Transforming OGD into social media feeds should not be incompatible with Web 2.0

applications. The new social dimension, where OGD are converted into suitable forms for

redistribution as Social Web streams, should be an addition instead of substitution:

YourDataStories should also support the development of “traditional” applications, such as

portals, public services, and mobile applications.

“Social” also means “interconnected” and “open”. YourDataStories is expected to produce a

set of innovative applications, which will prove its potential and evaluate its impact on the real

needs of the relevant stakeholders. But these pilot applications must be treated as a starting

point: Massive participation and wide visibility cannot be achieved if the YourDataStories

platform is not open to the industry, business, and other developers that want to build their


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own application over the YourDataStories software stack, APIs, and data streams.

Augmenting OGD with user-generated content should not obscure the alignment of different

OGD sources. YourDataStories seeks to build upon the fusion of OGD with user-generated

content, but this does not mean that the fusion among different open data sources is less

important. OGD will produce a greater impact in the social dimension if they are as complete

as possible, and completeness is rarely associated with a single source. The YourDataStories

platform should provide suitable alignment facilities, able to accommodate different

vocabularies and describe data with clear semantics, under a unifying ontology.

In summary, the project will aim to meet these goals by providing a better way for data publication,

enhanced by tools and methods as well as new dimensions such as a social dimension.

The project will cater the publishers of open governmental data on how to foster meaningful

and useful government data publication, by bridging the gap between the “supply side” and

the “demand side”. In this context, YourDataStories aims to meet the citizen and business

needs by putting open data into good and innovative uses, promoting data use, re-use and re-

purposing, ultimately enhancing transparency and corruption fighting. In addition,

YourDataStories aims to bring open data in social computing, by adding a third social

dimension to the data, by making semantically linked open data visible and usable in popular

social media platforms, where the data can been seen, used, linked, and augmented by

millions of users in order to become part of their user stories.

From a communication point of view this means that we have to carefully choose our messages in order

to succeed, have an appropriate time plan what to communicate and when and to what end. Going

from basic development to a product/service level that has enough maturity for being considered for

implementation is a difficult task – given that there is much competition for both attention and budgets

in this space and the market as a whole.

One key aspect that will be repeated again and again in this communication plan is the need to simplify

without compromising on the projects core work.

2.4 Impact Measurement Matrix

Goal Metric Measurement

Reach Total number of contacts - Number of visits on website

- Number of followers (Twitter)


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Total number of contacts in relevant user

groups

- Number of contacts (LinkedIn)

- Number of contacts through

public speeches at conferences

Network contacts - Specific contacts to persons involved with

OGD projects, e.g. through interviews on the

website of YDS

- Number of interviews

- Number of connected initiatives

Quality - Organizations expressing interest in working

with YDS

- Number of Letters of Intend

Etc.

Table 1: Impact Measurement Matrix


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3 Communicating YDS: Specific Goals and Objectives

3.1 Overview

Based on the desired goals of YDS described in the previous chapters and the defined goals for the

project, the communication plan needs to address the specific ways on how and when potential users,

potential collaborators as well as the general public will be informed about the project.

3.1.1 Key Challenges

The number one key challenge is that the project will only produce usable outcome during the later

stages of the project. On the other side interaction with intended user groups can greatly help to

establish the name of the project and learn about requirements of the OGD projects all around Europe

in terms of technology and functionality.

Secondly, the project tackles an area where public interest and technology overlap, making it a specific

challenge to find the right messages for different user groups.

Thirdly, much of the communication outside and inside the project will have to provide simple, powerful

and understandable messages about the project without over-simplifying it beyond the real tasks that

the project works on the background.

All three challenges will be addressed in the following chapters.

3.1.2 Goals for YDS

In order to communicate successfully we need to raise awareness among the general public regarding

the existence of YDS as a project and what it promises. In order to reach this goal we need to connect

with newsrooms, journalists and influencers in the specific areas to generate as much coverage and talk

about the project as possible.

Another key element is to build trust in the core user group of activists, project managers and other

people involved with running open data offerings. This is, so far, a relatively small community with many

crisscrossing ties between the people in this sphere. Which means that once a project has entered the

these circles as one player, we much work carefully and diligently to ensure that there is expectation

and willingness to collaborate with YDS in the inner community of open data projects.

Finally, there is “translation” work to be done when communicating technical concepts. Open, linked

data is an evolving field and must be described in terms, which are appealing and understandable to

larger audiences, again without compromising or over-simplification.

3.2 Communication Phases for the project

All communication and dissemination activities have to be planned. Following the projects lifetime, the

activities are based on different phases, matching the progress of the research and innovation activities.


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The DoA already defined three phases for the project communication strategy, giving an overview of

envisioned tasks and actions to promote the project.

Table 2: Communication Strategy documented in the DoA

We have slightly adjusted these phases based on the ongoing work in the project relating to what has

already been accomplished and what is yet to come (as seen in Figure 1: Dissemination Phases). This

means that phases are overlapping and partially parallel.

Figure 1: Dissemination Phases


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3.2.1.1 Phase I: Inform and Connect

In this early phase of the project there are two main goals for the dissemination activities. One is to

concentrate on making the project know among its different target audiences. The other is to connect

to audiences, especially the Open Data Groups and Data journalists around the world for input and

collaboration.

Making the project known among the target audiences is key to create awareness for the project,

getting people on board and interest them in the work. Communicating the project objectives,

concepts, specifications as well as research findings will be key tasks to achieve this.

This can best be done through channels like the project website, press releases and conference

contributions. But also through the use of multiple social networks like Twitter, LinkedIn or Slideshare

will we be able to spread information about YDS and to connect to experts and interested individuals

and groups.

The “Inform and Connect” phase extends over the whole project lifetime. Creating a network of high

influencers in the areas of OpenData, Datavisualisation and Data-Driven-Journalism will be a main goal

of this phase. But also raising general awareness of the YDS project, proclamation of project goals,

concepts and research findings among researchers and target users, as well as catching potential early

adopters and end users and connecting to OpenDataInitiatives.

3.2.1.2 Phase II: Demonstrate and Contribute

The second communication phase is all about demonstrating progress of the project and getting people

to contribute to the work. This involves future users of a YDS platform, open data experts as well as

scientific experts from other (EU / research) projects for collaboration. Building on a successful first

phase of communication, this can best be achieved by using the established connections and networks.

Presenting early achievements of the project will work as calls-to-action, asking the audiences for

feedback and ideas, but also showing them how the project progresses. For this it is very important to

actually have first components, examples, or even mock-ups to share with the audiences. These should

be accompanied by explanations from technical partners describing the current state of technical

developments and future steps.

To successfully implement this phase it is necessary to have adequate feedback channels in place,

through which users can reply. Social Media channels are a great way for this, just as a contact form on

the website and a project-email should be established for this.

First steps of the “Demonstrate and Contribute” phase will already be taken during the first year (e.g.

awareness of the project to other projects) since its concepts do overlap with the “inform and connect”-

phase. The first real activity however won’t start until the first results are available and the technical

direction of the project is clear. These activities will continue until the end of the project. The

dissemination efforts will be focused on providing use cases, samples and feedback channels.


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3.2.1.3 Phase III: Share and Convince

The third phase of the communication strategy will coincide more or less with the third year of the

project. The focus in this phase will be on sharing achieved results and on convincing end users to test

and start using the YDS platform. The main communication activity in this phase has two foci:

User focus: Showcasing the YDS solution, ideas and its possibilities in regards to the usage and

handling of open data to both users and content providers and engaging with these early users to

get feedback on the outcomes of the YDS project.

Data focus: Giving an overview of what data YDS is capable of handling, how they are formatted

and what YDS allows users to do with the data in order to better understand them.

Technical focus: Sharing project results and testing the technical YDS solution, showcasing

different modules and cutting edge technologies developed, etc.

These activities take place at various events like scientific fares, conferences or workshops. They are

also providing through marketing materials on the website and through the different established social

media channels (where applicable).

The success of these dissemination efforts depends on stable results of the project.

3.2.1.4 Final integration towards end of project and beyond

Before completely wrapping up the project, it will be crucial to evaluate the connections made during

the project’s duration in order to get beyond the mere project status. With a successful YDS solution at

hand, gaining further collaborators and even a continuation of the development of the YDS solution is

a lot easier. Communication will at this point aim at presenting the successful results of the

consortium’s work as well as at winning stakeholders who see potential in the projects results.

Of course in order to share a convincing message it is absolutely crucial to have a working prototype/

integration of the YDS solution that can be presented to possible collaborators and interest groups.

Using the established channels the progress and success of the project will be communicated, aiming

at a broad audience for one, and at particular interest groups as well. One central part of this will be

the website and the connected social media channels. Another one should be direct contacts through

conferences and personal meetings including presentations of the results.

All these activities are already part of phase 3, only gaining a special focus once the official project end

and the final evaluation are near. Ideally the communication of the project and its results continues

beyond the official end, which depends very much on the results and their tangibility and usability.


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4 Audience

4.1 Defining the audience for YDS

The goal at this point is to select the right audience to appropriately tailor the messages, the project

solutions and all other efforts to provide a good fit with market expectations and user group interests.

It must be clear from the very start that YDS as an innovation action must compete for attention with

a number of other efforts, partially provided by public bodies, partly by commercial companies. The

communication efforts must therefore be tailored to firstly create an awareness regarding the focus of

YDS and then to move further to disseminate information about the specific benefits of the YDS

platform. The general strategy of this project will be to “make small user groups really happy” – a notion

and suggested strategy designed to work well in general markets with many alternatives and options.

Defining the audience means to find specific target groups and sub-target groups where the work of

YDS can connect, provide benefits and thus foster adoption and cooperation.

4.2 Main types of audience

In D2.1 we described the types of users that are most likely to benefit from a YourDataStories solution.

Using the occupational categorization six user groups were defined:

Media & Data Journalists

Civil Society

Auditors

Web Developers

Public Institutions

Suppliers

Based on these groups and with a close look at the objectives and aims of the work in YDS, we defined

four distinct types of audience that go beyond the occupational categorization. This makes sense, as

the aim of the communication strategy is not only to reach end-user like the above mentioned, but also

a broader audience to spark interest for our work.

The messages disseminated through and about the project are going to be tailored appropriately mainly

for these four groups, which are defined in the following subsections, including their special needs.

4.2.1 Public and Private Companies

The first target audience group consists of public and private companies involved in one way or another

in the data market. These are in particular the following:

- Public institutions and organizations (e.g. Auditors)

- Private companies (e.g. suppliers)

- NGOs


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- Consulting and audit companies

The members of this group are mainly on the supplier’s side of data, providing (the public with) open

data about their work and numbers. This means they are the ones distributing data, making it available

for the public (as well as journalists and the media) to view and work with. As this data also makes the

foundation of the YDS concept, they play a key role for the project and need to be addressed as such.

This goes in particular for the aforementioned problems with this data: It is often distributed in

proprietary formats, unstructured and incomplete. This is to a certain extend understandable as

especially private companies do not want to publish everything there is to know about their work. But

it is in some cases also due to missing templates or tools.

The aim of the communication towards this group from a YDS perspective is however to

- underline the necessity of open formats as well as structured, usable and user friendly ways of

distribution

- encourage them to continue to distribute their data

- help them see the advantage in promoting their data more openly, furthering transparency

- show how YDS is trying to offer new ways of handing out data without being afraid negative

numbers or mistakes, through templates and simple data-visualization methods

Of course the members of this group can to some extend also be on the receiving side of the data. So

they are also going to be addressed as such by the dissemination activities of YDS.

4.2.2 Media, Journalists and Data-Experts

As the general public often lacks the means and skills to read and interpret the data coming from public

bodies, media and journalism act as an intermediary, transforming the raw data into stories and

messages, understandable to everyone. This job is often supported by data-experts from other fields.

YDS aims at making this work even easier by providing simple access to structured data from different

sources. This would allow for quicker access and better results.

This of course makes the media, the individual journalists and the data experts in particular a very

important group of the target audience. YDS wants to get in contact with the people for once to get the

message out about the project, using the media as multipliers. But also and foremost to learn from

journalists, especially data-experts about their needs and tricks, when dealing with open data from

public bodies and companies.

4.2.3 Scientific Community

The scientific community will be addressed as part of the research progress of the project. They can be

seen as organisations that are more interested in the research approaches of the YDS project and the

scientific outcomes rather than the media and public benefits. The aim is to spread and share (parts of)

the scientific results, and initiate further collaboration between scientific / academic institutes and


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research centers. Specific communities identified include (but are not limited to) those working in areas

and dealing with topics such as: public open-data, data-analysis, data-visualisation.

4.2.4 General Public

The general public (civil society) includes to a certain extend the groups mentioned above but also other

stakeholders who may be interested in the project activities and results. This audience is rather varied

and ranges from individuals (e.g. data-journalists, civil activists monitoring public data), to organizations

(e.g. NGOs working with open data from public bodies or companies), and ultimately, the public or

society at large. In particular we aim at everyone who’s interested in open data, and whom

YourDataStories can help make sense of it in order to tell their stories with it: The end-users of the YDS-

solution. The aim is to raise general awareness about the YDS project and its objectives.

4.2.5 Key messages for audiences (table)

To reach maximum effect with each message, it is best to address each audience through its appropriate

channels. For example the best way to connect to a scientific audience is probably within a conference

or a scientific workshop. Keeping that in my the YDS project suggests the following locations (not

conclusive) in relation to the different types of audience defined beforehand:

Target group Location

Public/Private companies

• Trade fairs • Industrial events • Industrial workshops • Industrial oriented media

Journalists / Media / Data Experts

• Project Website • Social Media / Special Interest Communities • Data-Conferences • Press releases • Newsletter

Scientific community

• Scientific conferences and workshops • Clusters, Mini clusters (also collaboration activities) • Academic oriented media, such as journals or other

publications • Academic forums

General Public • Project website • Social Media • Marketing material

Figure 2: Approaching Target Groups


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5 Claims, Messages and Facts

The following Chapter gives an overview of strategic messages and story formats applied for the YDS

communication for each audience group as defined in Chapter 4.

5.1 Claims and Messages Overview

This communication plan is based on two principles how to reach the defined audiences during the

projects active phase.

Firstly, we follow the principle of “message before media”. Applied to the project it means: Before we

decide which communication channel might be suitable, we define what we want to communicate to a

specific audience.

The second principle is to “make a small user group very happy”, in contrast to merely informing a very

large, but unspecified audience. The background is that we need to not just inform potential users, but

manage to find early adopters who will actually implement the technologies developed in this project.

From one implementation we can work on the next - the number of actual users are the most relevant

in the end.

The key message is to inform stakeholder in open source data projects that YDS provides new ways to

work with open data.

The key claim in this communication plan is:

The main facts and key message is based on this projects DoA, which was already created for Part B of

the proposal. It is useful for the communication activities to ensure that the messages and key facts are

the same across all channels.


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In order to successfully communicate these facts, however, several guidelines for the communication

have to be added. When discussing and presenting options for the use of open data any project in this

field must be ware that limitations are a lack of understanding and, in part, a resistance of both the

public and private sectors “towards smoothly absorbing transparency, participation and collaboration”.

The Description of Action already covered the possible strategy for the project and is therefore quoted

below:

“Especially as far as public sector personnel is concerned there is a clear gap of appropriate

procedures and leadership skills for open government projects management. Simple adaptation

of even the most sophisticated open data, transparency and participation technology

applications is the easy part in the equation of a successful large scale open data project. The

challenge is to put in place creative ways to bypass the formalism of typical project management

procedures that despite the initial intentions end up preventing the realization of open data

Mission Statement

YourDataStories is designed to help advance transparency and participation in the Public Sector

through the deployment of open public economic flows across Europe. In this context,

YourDataStories creates a highly customisable web platform for Linked data exploitation and

web3.0 solutions development focused in economy – related activities. (Quoted from DoA).

Designed as a self-service platform, the YourdataStories provides all the tools and features for

building personal Linked Data applications for multiple channels (i.e. mobile, tablets). The data as

well as the applications and services will be available in the YourDatastories market place aiming to

create a pan-European Data & Services Directory to facilitate the production of new personalised

services for the YourDataStories Marketplace. Government, businesses and citizens can use the

marketplace in order to quickly and easily access novel new applications services that are smart,

mobile and personalised.

Key goals of YDS:

Access to Technology: The project recommends that the provided services are created

following SPARQL end points regarding semantic services, HTTP REST for public services and

HTML5 for visual analytics and re-usable visualization components and web GUIs;

Citizen Capacity: The potential-user and / or visitors should be guided to the tools and

services that best suit their ability from novices who can ‘play with data’ to gain insights to

the more technically skilled who can ‘develop with data’ to build new services

Consortium Incubation Capacity: The platform provides business support which enables

stakeholders to work together to deliver solutions;

Access to Market: The platform contains a market place where innovators can advertise

their new services to all stakeholders across Europe.


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applications full dynamic. A possible remedy for the above mentioned barriers might be a two-

fold action. 1) To involve participants in the project in developing a design thinking approach by

matching the value driven character of the project with a thorough need- finding research which

will reveal obstacles, conditions; 2) to adopt an as open as possible publicity strategy by

publishing online selected parts of the project early on and thus build a strong sense of co-

creation with users and stakeholders in general.“

The communication of YDS will address these limitations by pointing to positive and successful

examples of both OGD (Open Government Data) and projects that have succeeded. Furthermore there

is a big opportunity for the project by connecting with active open data groups wherever possible.

Building a mutual support group between likeminded and already involved groups is a key part of the

communication strategy. Wherever possible we will reach out to working examples, both from the EU

and internationally to make a point about the many ways open data can be used and applied for a

higher level of information.

5.2 Communication channels

Just as audience and message play an important role in the communication strategy, so do the channels

used to spread the news about the project.

While YDS is going to rely on the project website as a main focus point for communication there will be

other channels in use as well. Some of them will be in direct connection to the website (e.g. Twitter

Channel displayed on the website), others will be separate from it. All in all a well balanced mix of

analog and digital channels is going to be key.

Printed materials like flyers, or brochures can be easily distributed to participants at conferences and

workshops. They work very well as ‘ice breakers’ allowing for something to pass on and start

conversations. This works especially well in the scientific context, where also posters and presentations

with according (digital) publication are very common and useful. Posters can be used as background

materials in a conference booth, but also distributed and posted in universities or other institutions.

Social Media channels like twitter, LinkedIn or SlideShare are great to address multiple target audience

groups. Using specific hashtags (keywords) and group settings (Twitter lists & communities, LinkedIn

Groups) allows for very specific addressing of specific groups. These tools are especially useful to

address journalists, media and data experts who are well connected through these channels. When it

comes to sharing technical information a shared and open developing platform like github can be key

to engage user groups and share project results. Platforms like YouTube can be used to distribute short

explaining videos creating interest in the project among young audiences but also to increase discussion

about the project’s work.

For direct interaction with the YDS audience, a series of conference participations and hackathons is

foreseen. Both will be organized, planned and visited by all project partners, depending on their

availabilities. These activities allow for a direct connection to all groups of the target audience. All the


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aforementioned materials (like flyers, brochures and posters) will be put to use there as well. Especially

the hackathons can play an important role as they allow for direct connection to the core user

5.3 Communication frequency and feedback loops

Communication frequency is all about the audience and the proper channels. While it is adequate for

some channels to run a weekly or monthly update, channels like Twitter or other social media networks

requite a higher frequency of updates to grow and keep an audience.

The communication frequency will be based on a weekly basis for the website, with ad hoc

communication when needed via social media.

For the first year the main goal for the communication activities will aim to generate knowledge about

the project and its goals, both for wider and more specific user groups.

In the second and third year invitations to demonstrators, options to participate in Hackathons and

demonstrators will lead to active presentation of early project results and usage models.

Finally, in the third year, the number of users or organizations expressing written interest in using the

technologies developed by YDS are key.

5.3.1 Communication frequency and contact funnel

All measurement of activities will need to separate broad brand awareness for YDS, the project and the

platforms created versus actual commitment. It is important to note at the beginning that we aim to go

to beyond simply “information” about the project – the key will be process towards collaboration and

usage of the tools provided by the project.

Therefore the project will track the progress in terms of both quantity and quality, the latter being

focused on actual “buy-ins” of organizations. Cases where the potential partners turn down the offer

to collaborate must be used as important feedback for the technical partners in the consortium to

potentially align the offering, the features and the wording to describe what YDS has to offer with

market expectations.

The contact frequency should be regular, reliable, but in a way that is not overloading the audience

with too many details and in-between development news. What is important is a timely communication

of milestones once the project achieves new levels of development and completion of work packages.

The contact funnel will therefore display in a clear and easy to see form how many initial contacts are

transformed into real partners who invest time into implementing YDS solutions into their own offering.

5.3.2 Feedback loops

As noted above, the communication strategy must include certain feedback loops, based on specific

metrics. All metrics will be tracked both in terms of quantity (number of contacts) and quality (depth of

contact).

Simple metrics which will be applied to each communication channel used by the project are:


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- How did the traffic to the website develop, both in terms of first time visitors and returning

visitors?

- How many Twitter followers has the project gained?

- Has there been press coverage of the project?

- Number of conferences attended?

- Participants in the conferences (total and actual participants in talks, presentations)?

- Have there been scientific publications?

All the metrics will be used to re-visit the communication strategy every three month and potentially

lead to adjustments, e.g. strengthening communication means that have been more successful than

others.


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6 Communication resources and collateral

As mentioned before, there are various dissemination tools, materials and activities. This section

describes the main elements YDS is already using or which it is going to use. As the project has only just

started, not all resources have been set up yet. The list of items concludes the following:

Project Identity – Logo, Colours, Fonts, Images, Language, Imprint, Contact

Style Guide and PPT Template

Website

Social Networks – Twitter, YouTube, SlideShare, LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook

Printed Media – Flyer, Brochure, Banner, Poster, Sticker, Newsletter

Generic Video

Dissemination Events – Academic, Technical and Industry Events, Hackathons

Papers and Publications – Scientific Papers, Press Releases, other Publications

YDS Workshops

Collaboration and Standardisation Initiatives

Sustainability

6.1 Project Identity

The project identity is not merely the development of a logo but also the coherence between all

multimedia outings of the project. Only when there is a strong concept that is implemented throughout

all multimedia outings one can speak of an identity.

The concept of YDS’s identity is brining information together and telling your story with it. While using

YourDataStories you as a user shall be enabled to connect the dots from different sources, bringing to

together the different angles and telling a coherent story.

The idea is being translated by four dots, all being connected to one central one, like in a centralized

network, followed by the Name and key phrase of the project: Your Data Stories.

6.1.1 Logo

The logo is the main tool to create direct visual recognition of the YDS project. Therefore the logo has

to be simple, recognizable and give a hint of a story behind it.

There are two versions of the logo, optimised for different sorts of use. The colour version will be the

most used version. It is optimised for both web and print.

Figure 3: YourDataStories Logo in Color


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The black and white version is optimised for use in black and white documents that are likely to be

printed in an office or are likely to be copied.

Figure 4: YourDataStories Logo in Black and White

For usage in Social Media an avatar has been developed based on the main logo. Due to typical

limitations of social media avatars in comparison to a logo (small size and square format), the avatar

has been slightly adjusted, but keeping the main aspects of the logo.

Figure 5: Social Media Avatar

6.1.2 Colours

There is a simple colour setting for YourDataStories, concluding of three main colors: White, Blue and

Grey. These colors are used in the project logo and find themselves also in the templates and on the

website. Keeping the spectrum limited to a little number of colors makes for a clear and simple

design, that doesn’t distract from the core information and content.

The main settings for these colors can be seen in Figure 6: Colours and RGB Numbers:

Figure 6: Colours and RGB Numbers


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These numbers should be used whenever YourDataStories is refere to graphically. It is possible (as done

in the presentation template) to slightly adjust the colors, by changing the Saturation, making the color

palette lighter or darker. But the colours in general should be kept to keep an overall identity.

6.1.3 Fonts

The standard font used for YDS documents is “Calibri” – which is a standard font type in office software. As an alternative, on systems where Calibri is not available, “Ubuntu”1 can be used. The different color and size settings for the documents can be found in the templates. They look as follows:

Figure 7: Examples of Calibri Font Use for Documents

6.1.4 Language

Part of the identity is also the consequent use of one language. The standard language for YDS is UK

English and it will be applied to all publications and websites.

Clear and simple language is encouraged. Sentences and paragraphs should be kept short. Text should

be attractive to readers and easily accessible to non-technicians.

6.1.5 Compulsory Elements and Imprint

Complementary to the design features that must be taken into account, all publications (flyer, banner,

website, etc.) published by YourDataStories must contain the following compulsory elements:

The YDS logo in conjunction with the European flag

The web address and/or contact details of YDS

Copyright 2015 YDS – clearly change year of publication where needed.

A standard disclaimer for the Horizon 2020 Program (see below) must be included into all publications, which express opinions.

1 http://font.ubuntu.com/


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The standard disclaimer that is compulsory is:

„This project has received funding from the European Union’s H2020-INSO-1-2014 ICT-enabled

open government programme.2”

If needed, e.g. for a presentation with PowerPoint or in case of unclear ownership of content or

consequences of usage of the content the following disclaimer can be added:

“The views represented in this document only reflect the views of the author's and not

the views of the European Union. The European Union is not liable for any use that may

be made of the information contained in this document. Furthermore, the information is

provided "as is" and no guarantee or warranty is given that the information is fit for any

particular purpose. The user of the information uses it at its sole risk and liability.”

6.1.6 Contact

The standard contact information to be used on dissemination material for the YDS project is:

Project Coordinator

Anna Triantafillou, Deputy Head of the ATC Innovation Lab, ATC

E-mail

a.triantafillou [at] atc.gr

Phone

+30 210 68 74 300

Address

Athens Technology Center S.A., Rizariou 10, Chalandri 152 33, ATHENS

6.2 Templates

In order to keep the project’s identity similar across all events, several template were created by ATC.

The templates are available in the project’s wiki. Project members can use these templates to create

their YDS PowerPoint presentations as well as deliverables.

Especially in regards to the many options PowerPoint offers its users, it is necessary to give all

presentations a similar framework. The template is currently still very simple, so as not to make to many

limiting specifications. However it can still be extended if the need arises to give more clear structure

to the presentations.

2 http://ilab.atc.gr/projects/yds#sthash.latRc7rH.dpuf


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Figure 8: PowerPoint Template

6.3 Website

The YDS Website3 is designed to be two things: a place to turn to for key information about the YDS

project and a hub for data stories and data expertise.

For the latter YDS is aiming at introducing its audience to as many data experts as possible, presenting

their profiles on the website and giving insights into their personal data stories plus a brief background

and a backlink to their websites, projects or research work (which will increase the relevance of YDS as

a central hub on Google and other network points). This allows for an approach that is both in line with

the projects actual development and the interests of the core target group:

Step 1 – “Please tell us about yourself and your role in open data” The first contact with YDS is

not us talking about the project, but instead asking activists, OGD managers, developers

involved in the field of open data about THEIR PROJECT, THEIR BACKGROUND, THEIR NEEDS.

From a communication standpoint this is a polite and at the same time highly effective way to

connect: Instead of only presenting us, we start by asking about them. All these projects need

recognition and are searching for more public connections. The portraits and brief descriptions

of European and – to some extend – international open data projects then build the “spine” of

the main YDS communication strategy.

Step 2 - Building a community: With a growing number of people and projects briefly presented

on the YDS website this opens many opportunities to present results, progress and actual

modules to this core user group and beyond. We can be sure that when YDS reaches a milestone

that this core group will be aware of this. Furthermore we can expect relevant feedback to

demonstrators and first trials – a lot of information, which can be used to enhance the offerings

from YDS.

3 http://yourdatastories.eu/

http://yourdatastories.eu/


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Step 3 – Rolling out services and platforms: YDS is an innovation action. One key goal is to

create platforms that are implemented during and specifically after the project has ended. Steps

1 and 2 open up a pipeline of contacts and opportunities to find first collaborators and

organizations implementing YDS solutions. From there the project can then work on growing

this specific number as much as possible.

This described approach is going to turn the YDS-Website into a hub for data experts and the data

community. In order to support this action there will be longer stories and examples on open data,

data-visualisation and data-journalism on a regular basis making the website a place to come to when

looking for data insights.

AS said before, this buzz about the website can then be used by the project to promote its own work

and the latest developments in the project. Therefore the website contains information about the

project partners, public deliverables, publications, events, the work packages, etc.

The website will, over time, include YDS key presentation materials, as well as research papers,

presentations, videos and demos elaborating on the scenarios and research challenges addressed by

YDS. The website is the main communication tool to disseminate news, events and achievements.

In order to fit the YDS project identity, DW has designed a website based on a WordPress template that

is clean and simple, but allows for a portfolio presentation of stories and people.

Figure 9: Homepage of the YDS Website, displaying a few first profiles


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Regarding its structure, the YDS website consists of the following elements that can be reached from

the Homepage:

Home (dynamic): will contain the portfolios on the data experts, stories on good data-

examples as well as the latest project news. At the top of the page are icons connecting to the

page’s RSS-Feed, the projects Twitter account as well as the project’s contact page. The footer

of the page contains a legal disclaimer, EU funding remarks, YDS’s twitter stream as well as

direct links to the categories posted on the page. This section is going to be adjusted later on

to reflect the diversity of information available on the page then.

About (dynamic, low frequency): This section contains basic information about the project.

Here you can find an overview of all project partners involved, a general overview over the

vision and goals of the project, the envisioned use cases as well as the work package structure.

This section will also contain results developed during the project’s lifetime like deliverables,

presentations, publications or code fragments. The further the project progresses, the more

content will be available here, also adding more subsections.

YDS Blog (dynamic): The entire editorial content that has been written for the website is listed

here; From the data expert portfolios, pest practices in data-visualization and data-journalism,

to related topics and project news such as participation at events, status, etc.

Contact (static): This page contains the contact information as well as a contact form for

people interested to get in contact with the YourDataStories Consortium.

The website is linked to other Social Media dissemination channels like Twitter and RSS (possibility to

extend). Crosslinking content between platforms is expected to increase the impact of each single

platform alone.

In order to give every project partner the opportunity to contribute editorial content to the website

and publish on partner-specific topics, YDS is going to create a publication schedule. This content plan

also contains writing tips, links to find license free images to use in the article and an internal review

schedule. The aim is to publish new content on a monthly basis with a specific view of each partners

area of expertise.


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Figure 10: Exemplary Website Content Plan

In order to keep track of visits and thereby success of the website, YDS is going to use PIWIK (the open

source alternative to Google Analytics) to measure the traffic on the YDS website. First statistics will be

included in the second version of this deliverable.

6.4 Social Networks

6.4.1 Twitter

Twitter is extremely useful to inform and engage with our target audience groups and their respective

communities. Building a community/being part of an already existing community is crucial for

dissemination via Social Media platforms. Information about the latest updates on the website, new

events, discussions and news will be provided via Twitter.

In order to connect to already existing communities and build our own, YDS is going to use the available

hashtags #DDJ, #dataviz, #opendata & #publicdata. Once a notable number of followers is established,

it is possible to try and build our own hashtag (e.g. #yourdatastory). This needs time and the appropriate

content to deliver with the hashtag. If successful it can help grow the popularity among the audience

groups and make YourDataStories better known.

http://piwik.org/


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Via the YDS Twitter channel4 (@YDS_EU) it is easy for followers to engage with the YDS project, either

by following, mentioning, retweeting or commenting on tweets.

Figure 11: YDS Twitter Channel

The project is going to use mainly two tools for the analysis of its twitter activities: Twitter’s own

analytics-system5 gives a very good overview over current conversations and interactions with

followers. For more details and insights, there YDS is going to apply Twitonomy6, a third party tool,

that’s available for free (in a basic version) to complete the overview. Data from both tools are to be

displayed and explained in the following version of this deliverable.

6.4.2 LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a Professional Network through which YDS can address very specific, professional target

groups. It is mainly functional for targeted networking and to create a sustainable YDS network in which

the status of the project but also project outcomes can be shared.

The YDS-Profile in LinkedIn has just been set up, so there are as of this moment no connections yet. The

profile will be filled more details and content over the coming months, building more connections to

people within the research group and then beyond. It will then also be used to syndicate the articles

written for the YDS website.

4 https://twitter.com/YDS_EU

5 https://analytics.twitter.com/

6 http://www.twitonomy.com/

https://twitter.com/YDS_EU

http://www.twitonomy.com/


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Figure 12: YDS-Profile on LinkedIn

6.4.3 YouTube

YouTube is highly regarded as a very effective dissemination channel for video content.

As for now, YourDataStories is not present on Youtube. YDS has set up a google-account, and will

activate its YouTube channel as soon as necessary. The idea is to create a short intro/promo-video

about the project and its consortium as well as demo videos, which can then be uploaded and shared

through the page.

6.4.4 Google+

Google+ is Google’s own Social Network. It is no longer connected with Gmail (which YDS is using for

project communication), but has to be used to set up a YouTube Channel. YDS will activate its Google+

Account as soon as it is necessary, together with the YouTube Channel.

Google+ can then be used in a similar way as Linkedin, creating direct connections from different user

groups and communities. YDS will also syndicate articles written for the website to Google+ once the

account is active.

6.4.5 Other Social Networks

As there are many different Social Networks around, with the number (and popularity) changing all the

time, there are other options for networking to explore. Not all networks are usable in the same way,

resulting in a better connection to our audience. It is also a question of resources, which networks are

really to be used for communication and promotion as well as the presence of the target audience.

As for now, YDS doesn’t see a huge potential in using Facebook for distributing content, as the network

is built on sharing information on a daily basis, with small pieces of information and interaction.


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Potential for a later stage can be found in Slideshare7 which is used to publish presentations, flyers or

similar publications. Once a relevant number of public presentations on the progress of the project is

available, the use of a YDS account will be evaluated.

The same goes for github8, an online sharing and collaboration platform for code and coding projects.

This network is very useful when promoting prototypes or code fragments especially in regards to the

envisioned audience. It will be evaluated in a later stage of the project when the actual development

of a platform has begun.

Furthermore YourDataStories will keep an eye on the development of the market for other new and

old tools and evaluate their usefulness in regards to the project.

6.5 Printed Media

6.5.1 Flyer

As mentioned before YDS plans to design a project flyer, a small handout (A5 size) that communicates

the project’s main message, main research objectives, context (Why YDS now?), contact details and

project partners.

The flyer will be used as promotion material at conferences and workshops, and will be updated over

time.

6.5.2 Brochure

In addition to the flyer a larger brochure is also planned. This brochure will contain more business-

oriented information about YDS’s main focus OpenData and Datavisualisation and give more of an

insight into the project and its work. Readers will be invited to join the project, share knowledge and

collaborate.

6.5.3 Banner

To support the YDS presence on events a banner will be created. This banner should create interest

with the audience from far away to come closer and discuss the YDS project directly with a project

representative.

For public events where a banner is too large to present, or where the banner needs support with more

detailed information it is planned to create a generic poster (size A0), where necessary.

7 http://www.slideshare.net/

8 https://github.com/


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6.5.4 Newsletter

Newsletters can be used to inform specific target audiences (companies, decision makers, interested

people) about the progress in the project, latest findings and planned events. YDS aims to publish at

least 1 newsletter a year through its consortium members using their natural communities..

6.6 Dissemination Events and Collaboration

The presentation of research findings in national and international events such as conferences, trade

fairs, workshops and summer schools is an important dissemination activity, providing an opportunity

to present YDS results and engage with various people. YDS aims to be seriously engaged

presenting/chairing at several of such conferences/workshops and anticipates partners will attend

several conferences a year, such as EJC’s annual NEM SUMMIT or Deutsche Welle’s Global Media

Forum.

These events will also be used as collaboration opportunities. Partners are encouraged not only to

present YDS results, but also to network and make new connections the project can benefit from. This

action will also be extended to all professional networks already in existence within the partners’ own

networks, such as the EJC’s worldwide Data Journalism community or Deutsche Welle’s international

media network as well as open data and open government initiatives like the Open Government

Partnership

An important focus for YDS is on Hackathons as a format very popular among the data expert

community. Hackathons enable novel creations or practical solutions concerning specific requirements

identified by the project. YourDataStories will organise Hackathons to boost the application

development where necessary and provide the open data / open development community with

streamlined events to pitch in with creative ideas and code.

Each attendance of a project partner at a conference must be accompanied by a conference report to

ensure visibility to all stakeholders and partners and enable DW as dissemination leader to report about

these activities and their impact in both dissemination deliverables as well as on the project website.

6.7 Papers, Publications and Press Releases

The publication of articles in journals helps to reach a large audience. To get a paper published in an

international refereed journal supports the overall goal to have an impact on the topics of

YourDataStories. All partners in the project will submit papers for publication. It is expected that the

majority of these publications will be concentrated in the second and third years of the project (when

concrete research results first become available).

All papers and other publications (e.g. book sections, company magazines) that will be produced in the

project’s lifetime will be referred to on the YDS website (if possible from a legal perspective, they will

also be made accessible from there).


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The YDS consortium aim is also to publish several press releases during the project’s lifetime. Press

releases may take the form of traditional ones as well as more digitally suited releases, e.g. via a

company’s external newsletters.

6.8 Sustainability

To ensure the sustainability of the work performed by the YDS consortium over the full project period

of three years YourDataStories aims at keeping dissemination channels available for a period of at least

two years after the end of the YDS project. This will include the YDS website, the YDS social Network

channels (Twitter, YouTube, etc.). Please note that the channels will be kept available without any

partner of the YDS consortium providing any new editorial content or active maintenance (unless

specifically otherwise agreed by the YDS consortium).


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7 Evaluation and reporting

Measuring the effects of the YDS dissemination efforts is not only helpful for the project in order to

optimise the project’s dissemination efforts but also crucial in order to understand the impact the

project has as a whole. As the objectives have been stated with regards to the target audience, the

degree of information as well as the degree of engagement needs to be monitored and reported. This

is how it is planned:

- Quantity: In order to measure and report the dissemination of information regarding YDS, we

will set up a number of tools for constant measurement and tracking development towards the

defined goals. As mentioned before we are going to use the open source tool PIWIK to measure

the website’s traffic in a legal and unobtrusive way. This will give us access to data such as

numbers of visitors, duration of the visits, locations and redirects. For the social media

measurement we will have to rely on the networks’ own analytics features (like Twitter

Analytics) but we are also going to add third-partner software to our toolkit, such as Twitonomy

or Topsy. Data from other platforms such as Slideshare, youtube or LinkedIn will be collected

over time and added to the main statistics collection.

- Comparison and metrics to check the quality of the message: The second level of measurement

will be to define certain levels of engagement for the core audience and potential users of the

YDS platform. While quantity plays a role here too, the main point of reference will be the

growth of the audience, e.g. the number of re-tweets for Twitter, the number of returning

visitors to the website and so on. These metrics help to understand whether the communication

is reaching the intended audience.

- Quality and depth of contact: A final measurement is to carefully build a list of deeper contacts

to data providers, companies, organizations where YDS could be used and implemented in later

stages of the project. Here the relevant numbers are not in the thousands, but merely in the

hundreds.

One of the biggest challenges in measurement and reporting is the analysis and the definition of

success. Success cannot be measured solely in numbers. And what should be the benchmark?

For YDS we suggest to focus on the first five, then the first ten contacts expressing a clear interest and

according actions to implement and use YDS technologies or the market place for either offering or

using solutions for open data management. This poses the question what there is to measure. The aim

is to keep track of this core metric, based strictly on quality of contact, not quantity. We will need a first

actual user, then a second, etc. The role of the communication here is to provide potential contacts

once products and services from YDS are becoming available.


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Reporting templates for dissemination events help to keep track of the impact of these dissemination

events. A range of reporting templates and dissemination tools will help us do the reporting on these

events. All usage and interaction data will be collected in one central collection for easy reference and

reporting to all relevant stakeholders – in the project’s consortium and towards the EU commission

overseeing this project. The data will be presented internally at the reoccurring consortium meetings

and added in all detail to the dissemination reports D7.4.1 in M24 and D7.4.2 in M36.


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8 Communication and Dissemination Timeplan

As shown before the communication strategy of YourDataStories is based on three phases:

inform and connect

demonstrate and contribute

share and convince

Within these three phases there are different aspects to address. The following is a short overview of

important deadlines and actions that will play an big role in the communication of YDS.

Figure 13: Communication and Dissemination Timeplan

While the content production for the website, including expert interviews, articles and papers as well

as the participation in conferences are ongoing tasks, there are a few deadlines to keep.

Marked in Figure 13: Communication and Dissemination Timeplan, there are two dissemination

reports, that will have to be written during the lifetime of the project, one at Month 24, another at the

end of the project. These will contain detailed numbers on the success of the communication efforts

and strategy. They are going to give an overview of what worked well and what has/had to be changed.

There is another deadline before then, in month 12, which is closely related to this document: The

updated version of D7.1; D7.3. This updated version will include a short progress report on the strategy

and will describe necessary changes or additions to the strategy.


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9 Roles and Responsibilities

This section defines who will take what role in the execution of the communication plan. Aside from

defining key persons to work through the tasks it is highly important to involve the consortium as a

whole in reaching out to the intended target groups.

Key management

Tilman Wagner (DW) will be key manager on behalf of DW and for the project as a whole. His role is in

coordinating the process and working on many of the day-to-day tasks to produce content for the

various channels as well as assigning tasks to all others for input. Tilman Wagner has a background in

consulting and journalism, plus extensive experience in running communication activities for EU-funded

projects. Tilman is an expert for digital publishing and use of social media to build reach.

Mirko Lorenz (DW) will be assisting and taking over tasks as second key person in the communication

activities. His role is to produce specific narratives for OGD, data-driven journalism and case studies. He

will further step in for general management when Tilman is away from his desk or on holidays. Mirko

Lorenz has a track record as a promoter and trainer in the field of data-driven journalism and has far

reaching network contacts into the data jouranalism community. He organized a first round table for

data-driven journalism for the EJC in Amsterdam 2010, is a contributor to the “Data Journalism

Handbook” and a regular speaker and trainer for journalists. Furthermore, as an activity outside of DW,

he is co-founder and project manager for Datawrapper, a tool used for quick, but correct data

visualizations which has been adopted by major newsrooms around the world.

Supporting roles

All WP leaders will be part of the communication effort. It is highly important that the work done in the

project is communicated regularly, for that purpose the communication managers from DW will create

regular calls for all WP leaders to provide short updates, insights, examples and other contributions to

keep the general public informed about the project. A specific plan on how often members of the

consortium should contribute to the communication effort will be aligned with the WP structure and

deliverable schedule. Whenever there is a deliverable delivered, a brief abstract of key points should

be published on the website for that matter. In order to streamline communication efforts each partner

will appoint a responsible communication officer in charge of their communication tasks.

Contribution and amplification

Aside from core communication activities all consortium members will be activated to amplify

messages from YDS on various platforms, e.g. re-tweeting messages to their communities, adding

contacts to LinkedIn, attributing presentations published on platforms like Slideshare when

appropriate.


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10 Conclusions

The purpose of this document is to produce and distribute the dissemination strategy and concrete

actions needed to fulfill this strategy. Furthermore it serves for reporting on and measurement of all

YDS’s communication activities.

The overall goal is to inform the public and specific user groups about the existence, the offerings and

the benefits of YDS as a project and platform and to engage them in the process.

At M4 of the project, the deliverable gives an overview of the strategic goals of the project and derives

the specific communication actions from this. This includes looking at the target audience, the key

messages as well as the appropriate channels the project is going to use. It furthermore defines who

the communication will be shaped throughout the project, changing the focus as the project progresses.

As this is still early in the project, some activities have just taken of others are still to happen in the

future. This means, that some parts of the strategy are also still subject to change, depending in the

outcome of the first months and actions within the project. This will be included in the upcoming

version of the communication deliverable, scheduled for M12.

The consortium is looking forward to continue the collaborative dissemination activities in the periods

ahead.


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11 References

[1] YourDataStories, Description of Action

[2] YourDataStories, D2.1 - User Characteristics and Usage Scenarios

[3] European Commission, EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation:

Communicating EU research and innovation guidance for project participants; Version 1.0;

25.09.2014; http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/other/gm/h2020-

guide-comm_en.pdf

[4] European Commission, EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation: Horizon2020

Work-Programme 2014 - 2015; 17.Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation; 10.12.2013;

http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/wp/2014_2015/main/h2020-

wp1415-comm-diss_v1.0_en.pdf

http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/other/gm/h2020-guide-comm_en.pdf

http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/other/gm/h2020-guide-comm_en.pdf

http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/wp/2014_2015/main/h2020-wp1415-comm-diss_v1.0_en.pdf

http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/wp/2014_2015/main/h2020-wp1415-comm-diss_v1.0_en.pdf